Market Insights: May 15th, 2024

A-Share Market Overview:

• A-Share Market Performance: On Wednesday, the three major A-share indexes opened lower collectively. By the time of publishing, the Shanghai Composite Index had fallen by 0.25%, the Shenzhen Component Index by 0.27%, and the ChiNext Index had risen by 0.19%. On the market, power equipment led the gains, followed by non-bank financials, household appliances, light manufacturing, food and beverages, banks, real estate, while coal, automotive, oil & petrochemicals, and defence sectors weakened.

Stock Market Gains and Losses:

• Top Gaining Stocks: GME (GameStop) and AMC (AMC Entertainment) overnight soared by 60% and 32% respectively, hitting new highs since 2021. Headphone manufacturer Koss rose by 40%, BlackBerry by 12%, Tupperware by 17%. Reddit increased by 7%, while online broker Robinhood nearly went up by 7%.
• Chinese Concept Stocks: During the U.S. stock market session, the index of Chinese concept stocks fell, with Tencent closing up nearly 5% after earnings, Alibaba falling by 6%, NIO rising by 7%, and XPeng dropping by nearly 5%. The offshore yuan, once falling below 7.24, rebounded sharply by more than 100 points.

Commodity Market:

• Crude Oil Prices: Crude oil prices fell by more than 1%, reaching a nine-week low. Gold rebounded, but the PPI data subsequently led to a brief downturn. Copper in New York reached a two-year high, with the July contract squeezing shorts, rising by 5.5% and approaching an all-time high, while copper in London fell from a two-year high.
• New York and London Copper: New York copper reached a two-year high, with the July contract squeezing shorts, up by 5.5% and nearing an all-time high, while London copper dropped from a two-year high.

Personnel Appointments:

• Lleadership Changes: Salim Ramji, former head of BlackRock's iShares and index investment business, will become CEO of the asset management giant Vanguard in July, marking the first time in Vanguard's 50-year history that a CEO has been appointed from outside the company.

Policy Directions:

• Tariff Adjustments: The Biden administration will increase tariffs on strategic sector products from China, including steel, aluminum, semiconductors, electric vehicles, and lithium batteries. The tariffs for some products will rise from a maximum of 7.5% to 25%, and in some cases, even to 50%.

Index Changes:

• MSCI Index Review Results: MSCI announced the results of its May 2024 semi-annual index review, including 10 new constituent stocks, among them 2 Hong Kong stocks (Hisense Home Appliances H and Minmetals Resources) and 8 A-shares (CITIC Special Steel, Hisense Home Appliances A, Wanfeng Auto Holding, Jin Chengxin, Pingmei Shenma, Nanjing Iron & Steel, Tiandi Science & Technology, and CNOOC Development).